Orion lay upon the ground, a broken stick behind his head and his body aching more terribly than it had in months. After a long tenuous moment he opened his eyes to look up at the sky. It was by the grace of the Pancreator that either of them survived, much less both of them. Perhaps they did have a chance of doing the impossible in this district. "I was going to say something similar," he croaked, responding to her thought. 

He desperately wanted to remain unmoved, out of fear of finding something broken as much as exhaustion. But he stubbornly lifted himself to a sitting position. Annika would see a few blood streaks across his cheek and face, but otherwise he seemed fine save for the leaves in his military cut hair. A swift pain entered his lower back for a brief instant as he rose to his feet, but within seconds it was merely a thrumming pain. The worst was in his neck, but he could move his head as it was a secondary concern. Most of his injuring were probably musculature in nature. Pulls and inflammation, etc. 

He held his hand out to his Confessor, and slowly helped her to get to her feet when she could. "Are you not glad you decided to come with me?" He asked with a closed lipped smile. Groaning, he rubbed his neck as he looked about for his weapons. His sword and shield had stayed strapped to him, but his shotgun had been in his hands. He lamented it could be a mile away, but the sharp eyes of his Confessor pointed upwards, and a dozen feet in the air, the weapon hung by a branch with the firearm's strap. As they contemplated on how to best get it, a twig snapped across the clearing. 

Only holy providence kept Orion's senses so keen and his reflexes ready. He turned, bearing his shield aloft and pulling Annika close as ozone and and a crack erupted in the air. Her nose poked into the side of his neck as the lasblasts struck his shield, slapping like a hand over water as the weapons continued to discharge. "Stay low," He told her, and untangled her from him as he charged the source of the laser fire. The greater vantage point showed two Vuldrok raiders, wielding axes and laser pistols. Their hair was both wild yet carefully braided in intricate ways. 

Only one laser shot made it into one of Orion's armored legs, but he grunted through the flash burn and moved his shield perfectly in unison with his sword, guarding as the blade fell over the first Vuldrok's hand, cutting it off at the wrist. Shrieks of pain and violence filled the small clearing in the towering forest. Amazingly to one who had never seen a Vuldrok before, the one that had lost his hand still swiped with his axe. Orion had fought their like before and had the frame of mind to parry the chop with his sword, sliding his blade past the beard of the axe into the raider's neck. 

He spun, more out of desperation than nimbleness to keep the worst of the next lasers off of his form, a superheated beam nearly cutting off some of his shoulder muscle. Luckily it was only a graze, the next moments filled with a chopping axe and a sword and shield working in the sunlight like a strange dance that ended with the Vuldrok split down the middle from navel to nape. When Orion finished the move, his blade and knee was on the ground in a pose that looked almost as if in prayer, just as the Vuldrok raider toppled noiselessly. 

"Forgive me, Sister, for I have taken life." He breathed as he regained his footing. 
[@Penny]